Jharkhand, the 28th state in India was brought into existence by the Bihar Reorganisation Act on November 15, 2000 – the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, who fought for the expulsion of Britishers to establish the rights of the Mundas as owners of the land.
The aspirations of tribal people for a separate state was achieved, but have their living conditions improved?
The livelihood of the people is still largely dependent on agriculture. The total cultivable land in Jharkhand is 38 lakh hectare, net sowing area is 18.04 hectare (25 per cent of the total area) while the net irrigated area is 1.57 lakh hecare or eight per cent of the net sowing area.
Irregular rainfall and lack of irrigation facilities has led the people, both men and women, mostly tribals, to migrate to other states for employment as the per capita income stands at Rs 4,161.
Of the total 32,615 villages in Jharkhand, only 14,667 (45% of total) are so far electrified. The state has 32,615 villages of them only 8,484 villages are connected by roads.
The development of electric power generation and supply somehow could not receive due attention and priorities in the erstwhile integrated Bihar. The state had a paltry of 1500 Mw installed capacity of power generation i.e., a meagre 20 watts per capita against a national average of 100 Mw per capita.
Jharkhand could have been self-reliant in power if two power projects proposed by NHPC and NTPC in Gumla and Hazaribag distrcts respectively had taken off.
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While the NHPC power project in Jharkhand was withdrawn as the locals mostly tribal refused to part with their land for the project, NTPC's 1980 Mw super thermal power project in North Karanpura in Hazaribag and Chatra districts has hit a roadblock with state-run Coal India Limited (CIL) raising objections on grounds that the location was coal bearing.
Industry sources said that that during the last ten years, development in all fields of the state miserably failed. The state has made budgetary allocation for the current financial (2010-11) of Rs 9,240 crore. After a lapse of seven months of the current financial year, only Rs 2,500 crore could be spent. Besides, Rs 2,000 crore meant for central schemes was lying unspent, while the state had set a target of spending Rs 10,700 crore this year.
The CAG report for the financial year 2009 on state finances said, "Against the grants, provided to various departments for specific purposes, utilisation certificates amounting to Rs 1040.91 crore were outstanding at the end of March, 2009 for more than five years, Rs 428.27 crore was outstanding against seven to nine year old grants. Despite such huge outstanding utilisation certificate bills of Rs 4327.71 crore, fresh grants were released by the departments regularly each year which was indicative of failure of the internal control system and may have resulted in misutilisation of government money."